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People of the Southwest
A permanent exhibit depicting 11,000 years of the
cultural heritage of the Southwest.
Ancestors
A permanent exhibit tracing human origins back four
million years.
Woven Stories: Navajo Weavers in a Changing World
Weaving is an intimate and sacred part of Navajo life and culture. It involves hard work: raising sheep and goats, carding wool, dyeing wool and making time for weaving. Over the past 200 years, Navajo weavers have faced many changes in lifestyle and environment. How do weavers adapt to these challenges, and what is the future of Navajo weaving? To address these questions, co-Curators Catherine Baudoin and Gwen Saul worked with several Navajo weavers to create the Woven Stories exhibition. Weavers’ impressions and observations profoundly affected the direction of this exhibit, and many of the stories and observations from the weavers are included.
Twenty-one Navajo textiles and over forty photographs taken by John Collier, Jr. offer opportunities to reminisce, to re-negotiate the past and to make connections to the present. Despite the challenges weavers currently face, they continue to build upon their own weaving traditions in innovative ways.
Curanderismo: Healing & Ritual
A new exhibition at the Maxwell Museum of Anthropology will explore the historical and contemporary practice of Mexican folk healing. Curanderismo: Healing and Ritual is the first exhibition in the United States to focus on the traditional healing practice begun in rural Mexico and spread to the Southwest United States and beyond. While the healing techniques have been common among Mexican American population, Curanderismo is currently gaining popularity as people interested in natural alternatives to allopathic medicine seek traditional healers.
Curanderismo is rooted in cultural knowledge from across the globe, since the time of contact of the Old World with the New. It includes Moorish and Arabic elements; Judeo Christian concepts, and herbal traditions of the Maya and Aztec. Treatments and therapies were popularized by turn of the century Curanderos Nino Fidencio, Teresita, and Don Pedrito Jaramillo who have since become folk saints.
A multi-layered practice born of many cultural influences, Curanderismo has, in turn influenced contemporary localized practices of culture, politics and religion. This can be seen in the way that folk saints or political figures might be associated with Curanderismo and the way that contemporary Pop culture engages with the imagery and ideas of Curanderismo.
The exhibition includes a vivid array of contemporary and historical objects and images. Opens May 4, 2013.
An Experiment in Viewing
Touch the digital images on our multi-touch table in the latest Maxwell Museum exhibition, An Experiment in Viewing. Curators Catherine Baudoin and Amy Grochowski selected a broad range of objects, culturally and geographically, along with photographs of people using similar objects in context.
This exhibition will give the visitor an opportunity to reflect on an object’s meaning and its journey through place and time. The viewer can imagine the creative process from idea and selection of materials, to construction and completion of piece. The multi-touch table allows the visitor to view the physical object in a digital format where its materials and construction can be seen in detail.
Contemporary Navajo Photographers: Present Tense
As the phrase implies, “Present Tense” locates a situation or event in present time. This exhibition, in an effort to counterbalance the weight of historic images of Native people by non-indigenous photographers, offers a glimpse into contemporary Navajo (Diné) life through the eyes of contemporary Navajo photographers. Their images locate Navajo life and culture firmly in the here and now.
This selection of work likewise allows for the contemplation of the complex, and at times fraught, mutual and parallel histories of anthropology and photography. Particularly as both have often been found together on display in the ethnographic, or anthropological museum.
Ten photographs by eight Navajo photographers, representing varying views and insights into contemporary Navajo/Native life, are on view. The Photographs are accompanied by the thoughts and words of the photographers themselves. Participating photographers include: Andrea Ashkie, Rudy Begay, Sherwin Bitsui, Jinniibaah Manuelito, Mihio Manus, Sam Minkler, Beverly Singer, and William (Will) Wilson.
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